Putting a Pricetag on Life: The Value of Life and the FDA

Regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration are in the business of protecting American lives. These agencies are constantly making judgment calls as to whether prospective products are sufficiently safe, whether proposed regulations will do more harm than good, and whether costs of compliance will justify the benefits. And yet, what cost is too high to save a human life? Although we would like to live in a world that needed not spare any expense to save a life, we know that ours is a world of scarcity. This fact requires that we, as a society, make difficult decisions about how much to spend to save lives – in other words, how to value human life. This paper first looks at different theoretical approaches for deriving a value of life, and asks which is the most appropriate for use in the regulatory context. The paper next considers the legal framework that plays a role in guiding agencies in the use of value of life figures. Finally, the paper examines the practices of regulatory agencies, the FDA in particular, regarding setting a value of life, and applying it in their decision-making. A web of legal authority, political pressures, and shear administrative difficulties come into play. Together, these competing influences create significant challenges to the usefulness of value of life analysis

The entangled relationship between Indigenous spatiality and government service delivery

Drawing on research in Yamatji country, Western Australia, this paper examines the complex and often contested relationship between mobile Indigenous people living in regional and remote areas and the delivery of State housing, health and education services. The delivery of basic government services to remotely living and frequently mobile Indigenous populations is a highly contentious issue. Drawing on research in Yamatji country, Western Australia, Sarah Prout examines the complex and often contested relationship between Indigenous people living in regional and remote areas and/or who continue to engage in frequent movements, and the delivery of State housing, health and education services

Values and Art Education

The following series of four articles represents some of my current concerns in art education. The articles are a result of explorations in contemporary writings by people from various fields of endeavor and a condensation and evaluation of the input from these several sources. The first three articles are a progression from current rationale in art education, to the importance of art in formulating values relative to our environment, to a discussion of the use of the t\u27elevision medium in art education. The fourth article is in the form of a T.V. workbook that might be used in art (or other) classes to provide activities for a study of the medium. Each article may be considered individually, expressing a complete but interrelated thought, but taken as a whole these articles help to articulate my personal approach to art education, my belief in the use of art in service to society and, specifically, my concern for the creative study and use of television in the art classroom. The concerns reflected herein stem from four year 1s experience teaching junior and senior high school art students and represent a desire on my part to make exploration in the field of art education eminently meaningful and applicable to everyday experience

Program Evaluation of a Pediatric Oncology Camp For Patients and Siblings

This article was published in the Fall 2009 issue of the Journal of Undergraduate Researc

An analytical ethnography of sickness absence in an English primary school

Medical sociology has characteristically dealt with children as inactive In the processes of their own illness and health. In part this reflects the treatment of children in sociology generally. It Is intensified by typically studying childhood sickness from the point of view of clinical settings where children's active role and voice are muted. There Is a tendency to ignore the wider social context sickness in children's own lives, especially schooling. It Is suggested that an ethnography of sickness absence, and children's part in its production, might begin to remedy some of these problems. The remainder of the thesis reports such a study. The fieldwork for the study took place in a primary school and looked at sickness absence among a class of fourth year children in the term immediately preceding their transition to secondary school. A variety of methods were used, including direct observation and interviews with parents, teachers and children. The material gathered is described in five parts: a) the social lives of children at school b) children's accounts of sickness and absence c) parent's (mainly maternal) accounts d) teacher perspectives and practices on sickness and absence e) the overall pattern of sickness absence during the term and its relationship to rhythms of schoolwork, especially as they concerned the transition to secondary school. The final chapter discusses childhood sickness as a cultural performance. The 'stage' for this performance is the transition to secondary school and the constitution of childhood in the age-grades of the schooling system. Two theoretical frameworks are used to approach the notion of performance: that of 'trajectory', suggested by Strauss et al; and that of 'symbolic transitional process', derived from Turner's work on liminality. Children's performance of sickness is understood in relation to ideologies and practices of work, gender and leisure

Canine colloquium: skeuomorphism and the transitional dog in 'La Criatura', 'Solas', and 'Recuerdos de perrito de mierda'

This article applies Jean E. Veevers' tripartite schematization of the social meaning of pets to an interpretation of canine protagonism in three Spanish texts. The functions of domestic pets identified by Veevers—projection, sociability and surrogacy—are mapped onto La criatura, directed by Eloy de la Iglesia (1977), Solas, written and directed by Benito Zambrano (1999) and Recuerdos de perrito de mierda, written and illustrated by Marta Alonso Berná (2014). Animal companions are made central in my analysis which fuses ethological cinematic theory with a review of critical reception to produce new readings of the texts. These uncover deconstruction of heteropatriarchy, gendered neo-liberalism and speciesism, loci hitherto unexplored in detail with respect to the corpus of material. The article posits the dog as an analogue skeuomorph and as a register of transformation that marks a shift in canine rhetorical value from psychopomp in the 1970s to remnantal residue of cultural memory in the 2010s

Humanizing the Downsizing Process: A Review of a Recent Downsizing Process in Three Conservation Authorities

This paper examines the ways in which the negative effects of downsizing can be reduced based on a survey of stakeholders involved in the downsizing processes of three conservation authorities in Ontario – Ausable Bayfield, Saugeen Valley, and Upper Thames River. The findings reveal that the most important factor to consider with respect to downsizing is whether there are good human resource management practices in place long before the downsizing process is to occur